Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu (R) and his wife Sara, who described him as ‘a giant of a leader’. Sara Netanyahu has been
thrust to the centre of his election campaign after the release of an
alleged transcript of her ranting down the phone to Monique Ben Melekh, the wife of Netanyahu's
political rival Eli
Moyal, during the war in Gaza last summer, From the transcript: “Does anyone in the country want anyone else other than Bibi? Huh?! Someone in this entire country?! They admire Binyamin Netanyahu the entire world over![He is] a man [who] took all of the State of Israel
upon his shoulders; he sends soldiers to war, he behaves with rare
political wisdom, speaks with leaders all the time! Binyamin Netanyahu’s
experience, his wisdom, his education! [He has] extensive education, university degrees! He also reads
books, understands the economy, security, policy, he knows how to speak
with leaders of the world!... In the United States they say that if he had been born in the US,
he’d have been elected president there!”
: text by Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem; photo by Nir Elias/Reuters via The Guardian, 27 February 2015

Binyamin and Sara Netanyahu. A damning official report into spending by the Israeli prime ministerat his official residence in Jerusalem and private seaside home has
accused him of excessive and improper use of public funds, including
spending huge amounts on takeaway food, hairdressing and cleaning. Prepared by Israel’s state comptroller, Yosef Shapira – and passed to
the country’s attorney general to consider whether any laws have been
broken – the report is potentially highly damaging to Netanyahu, coming
only a month before Israel’s elections. The government auditor’s report appears to confirm allegations that
have been rumbling for several years of excessive spending by Netanyahu
and his wife, Sara, and a lack of proper management of the costs in the
prime minister’s official home.
It has come on top of lurid allegations, detailed in a civil court
case, of the high-handed and abusive treatment of staff in the official
residence by Sara -– claims strongly denied by the Netanyahus. What has
made the issue potentially politically toxic in the middle
of an election campaign –- where Netanyahu is running neck and neck with
his main rivals -– is the sharp contrast it has afforded to Israelis
suffering under a high cost of living. The claims of potential illegal conduct centre on two issues: the so
called “bottle-gate affair”, which saw Sara Netanyahu pocket deposits on
bottles of drinks paid for by the state, later reimbursed; and claims
that garden furniture bought for the official residence was sent to
their private home. Among spending items criticised in the report is a bill to the
Israeli state for more than $18,000 (£11,700) for takeaway meals in a
single year, despite the fact that the Netanyahus are provided with a
cook and staff at the government’s expense. Another
expenditure highlighted was the cost of cleaning for Netanyahu’s
private home in the upmarket beach resort of Caesarea. It cost the
Israeli state $2,120 a month –- more than the monthly income of many
Israelis -– despite the fact that the Netanyahus spend the majority of
their time at the official residence in Jerusalem. Netanyahu was also criticised for excessive spending on a raft of
other items including hairdressing, clothes, water consumption and
electrical repairs made at the taxpayer’s expense at his private home. The official examination of the expenses -– incurred between 2009-13 –-
showed that cleaning costs claimed at the Netanyahus’ two residences
doubled without explanation from an already hefty $138,000 in 2009 at
the official residence alone. Perhaps most damaging of all is the revelation that employees of the
prime minister’s office were obliged to pay for some of Netanyahu’s
personal expenses out of their own pockets –- often small sums and not
reimbursed. “The meaning of a failure to pay back these invoices from petty cash
is that employees absorb the cost of private expenditures of the prime
minister or his family,” the comptroller wrote in his report. “When an
employee is forced to pay from his own pocket for an expenditure by the
prime minister, this is improper administration and it makes no
difference whether the sum is large or small.”: text by Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem; photo by Riccardo De Luca/AP via The Guardian, 17 February 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the campaign trail near
Jerusalem. Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has ordered a preliminary
investigation into alleged fiscal misconduct at the private and state
residences of Prime Minister.: photo by Nir Elias/Reuters via the Guardian, 27 February 2015

Angering the White House and Democrats,
Binyamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Republican leaders to address a
joint meeting of Congress on 3 March and speak about Iran. The
Republican leaders did not consult the Obama administration, which the
White House called a breach of protocol. Democratic senators Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein on Monday
invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during
his visit. He declined the invitation on Tuesday: photo by Reuters via The Guardian, 17 February 2015

Netanyahu’s Iran bomb claim contradicted by Mossad, leaked spy cables show. Binyamin
Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was
about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by
his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document. It is
part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from
the world’s major intelligence services -– one of the biggest spy leaks
in recent times. Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to
illustrate his
point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran
would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for
action to halt the process. But in a secret report shared with South
Africa a few weeks later,
Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the
activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf
between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and
the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment: image extracted from leaked Israeli intelligence document via The Guardian,
23 February 2015

Everything you need to know about #SkipTheSpeech: image via End the Occupation @US_Campaign, 27 February 2015

A
former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad is urging
voters to oust Binyamin Netanyahu in the next general election, accusing
the prime minister of
endangering the country’s security with his stance on the Iranian
nuclear programme. Meir Dagan, a vocal critic of Netanyahu's Iran policy
since stepping down as Mossad chief four years ago, is to be a keynote
speaker at a rally in Tel Aviv next weekend, calling on the public to
turf the prime minister out of office on 17 March. Netanyahu was due to
fly to Washington on Friday. In a trenchant critique of Netanyahu’s
leadership, delivered in a
long interview in Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth,
Dagan said the prime minister’s policies were “destructive to the future
and security of Israel”. Netanyahu’s planned speech has brought the
already uncomfortable
state of relations with the Obama administration to a new low amid
suspicion that the speech -– at the invitation of Republican house
speaker John Boehner –- was designed to enhance the Israeli prime
minister’s electoral prospects.: text by Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, photo by Abir Sultan/AP via the Guardian, 27 February 2015

Binyamin
Netanyahu visits at a military outpost overlooking the Israel-Syria
border on Wednesday. The Israeli ambassador to Switzerland and a
diplomat in India have been
called home over comments critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu,
the foreign ministry said on Thursday. Among the alleged infractions
was a retweet by Ambassador Yigal
Caspi, citing criticism of Netanyahu’s accepting a controversial
invitation to address the US Congress over Iran’s nuclear policy. “Every
time one thinks Netanyahu has taken the relationship with the
White House to the lowest point ever, he manages to take it even lower,”
said a tweet by Haaretz newspaper writer Barak Ravid, reposted on
Caspi’s private Twitter account before it was closed. Foreign ministry
spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told AFP that Caspi and
Assaf Moran, political counsellor at the embassy in Delhi, had been
called home. “They have been summoned to a hearing in order to check the
comments
attributed to them on their Twitter accounts.”: text by AFP in
Jerusalem; photo Baz Ratner/AP via the Guardian, 5 February 2015

Tell us why, Star Parker, we shld welcome #Netanyahu, who allows this kind of hate run amok in Israel against BLK PPL: image via 3ChicsPolitico_3 @Chics Politico, 27 February 2015

2 comments:

Right, so there it is, hello silence my old friend, it's "the end of the day" (the remains of the day of my birth), and I'm, like, so -- what? Four o'clock in the morning and dude wants to talk about -- are you kidding -- poetry??

Brecht?

Who? Is that like an uh, meme, or what?

The fewest and best words in the right order... Huh? What's he getting at? Are we being watched?

It was a day of great celebration in my precinct -- frozen, snowy, ice an inch thick on all the pavements, but, in honour of the occasion, after a prayer, the nuns allowed us an extra half hour out in the perimeter, to wing iceballs at one another.